I want to enter an image into an online competition but the size needs to be less than 3 MB. Most of my images seem to be larger than this. How do I reduce the size of the image in either elements or iphoto? I get confused by the different ways of measuring the images. I just want to make the image less than 3 MB

Set a resolution of 72 for display on the internet and that will give more scope when re-sizing.

If the image is already displayed at 72 ppi in the editor (see info strip at bottom of main edit window) simply use File >> Save As

Rename the file or accept any edit extension automatically added by elements; Then click the save button. You can adjust the quality slider between 1 to 12 to change the file size. A setting of 8 to 10 usually works well.

Thanks again Barbara, as usual you clarify things so well. I have managed to reduce the size to 1250x833 which gives me 705 KB but I have a real problem understanding the sizing of images. Does this sound like a reasonable size to send into an online photo competetion? Is there an easy way of understanding image sizes and what is suitable for what?

Does this sound like a reasonable size to send into an online photo competetion?

When an online site tells you to limit your photo to a size of "xx Mb or lower", they're doing that strictly for their own convenience -- they don't want to use up much storage space on their servers.

jude309 wrote:

Is there an easy way of understanding image sizes

When you use Image...Resize...Image Size, you can change the options like so:

and watch the "Pixel Dimensions" value change -- that label tells you the size of the image file on disk.

jude309 wrote:

Is there an easy way of understanding ... what is suitable for what?

In general, you'll use 72 (or 96) pixels/inch as the resolution for images used for display on computer monitors, and 300 pixels/inch for images that will be printed on you home printer. After that, just adjust the Width and Height values so your image has the physical dimensions you need.